Friday, January 10, 2014

Below are the ten River Vices posts, in order of frequency, that received the most hits in the last ten years. In the case of #1, my counter crashed when the number of hits for Mayor Kalb's redneck rhetoric approached 450,000 after it was picked up by the Huffington Post and Gawker as well as websites abroad. Instead of being embarrassed by the notoriety he brought to Portsmouth, Kalb is proud of the international recognition he received. “If I only had a brain,” the Scarecrow sang in The Wizard of Oz. Two of the top ten, #2 and #5, relate to Mayor Murray. #5 illustrates the difficulty outsiders (in this case an English woman) find in adjusting to and being accepted in Appalachia. The slapdash #3 is the biggest puzzle to me because I don't understand why it had so many hits. One of my personal favorites, which just missed being in the top ten, was “Canning the Can-Can Man,” about the WSAZ reporter, Randy Yohe, which you can read by clicking here.

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About Me

Retired now, I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, hold B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Wesleyan U. (Conn.) and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale, where I was a Research Associate at the Institute for Social and Policy Studies and a coordinator of a committee that organized international American Studies conferences during the American Bicentennial. From 1989-2006, I taught English at Shawnee State U., in Portsmouth, Ohio, where I was active in the faculty union, the Shawnee Education Association, serving four terms as president. I also served as faculty advisor to the student gay and lesbian group. I have served also as president of the Concerned Citizens of Portmouth and Scioto County, a community action group.
My scholarly interests have focused on the American Dream: the Myth and the Realities.
I can be reached at rforr1@roadrunner.com
A selection of my poems can be found at http://xpalidosis.blogspot.com The original contents of all blogs on this site are copyrighted @.